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Saving our past!

In recent years many of the limited editions of fly fishing and fly pattern books, that were published long ago, are now available for downloading for free, or for a slight charge to your computer, or ebook. Many libraries throughout the world, are attempting to save their old books (reserve section) that are now too fragile for public use. At one time the books used animial skins (parchment),later this switch rag stock used clothing torn apart and immersed in a tup of water, then the water wet rags fragments were placed in a press to remove the water, dried) to be use for the pages in the books. The pages from both of these methods these lasted for centuries in good shape. But book publishers changed over to paper pulp for their pages, and the formula for the inks use in printing change, and the acid in both the wood pulp paper and in the ink, was acidic and over time has the pages turning to saw dust. These the books are also suceptable to insects eating the wood pulp in the paper pages. So the the libraries (including the "Library of Congress" are going all out to save their archives, by photo coying them to electron publications.